ABSTRACT
Indian corporate history is less than two centuries old. A 'tea-break' is what led to the birth of Indian corporate sector. Today there are about a million companies registered in India. The thirty stock BSE SENSEX is representative of not just the stock markets but also the Indian corporate sector. The BSE SENSEX companies are used as a surrogate for Indian corporate disclosures. The best in corporate disclosures is selectively identified from a global competition for the best annual reports. The annual reports of the SENSEX companies and the global top ten companies are analyzed to compare and contrast disclosure practices. In content, there is very little that is different between the two groups of companies. But in the style of presentation there is a wide gulf between the two—a dfference arising from, a reporting mindset triggered by an obligation and a mindset to communicate motivated by desire. An interestingfeature of almost all the global top ten companies is their vintage; they have been in existen.cefor more than one hundred years.
